If you've never used PivotTables and PivotCharts in Excel then these are excellent tools to help summarise and show key data in new ways. We have a free online training course called PivotTables and Advanced Charts in Excel 2016 available for Business Achievers members.

About the Training Course

In Microsoft Excel 2016, PivotTables and PivotCharts let you dynamically reorganize and display your data. They can summarize huge amounts of data by category without the need to input complex formulas or spend long hours manually reorganizing your spreadsheet. You can choose and change what you want to summarize. In this course, you will also learn how to use advanced chart features like trendlines and dual axis charts.

Who the Course is For

End users at all levels, including those who have little or no familiarity with Microsoft Excel and more experienced Excel users who want to learn about the new interface and features in Microsoft Excel 2016

What the Course Covers

It takes just under an hour to go through and the course covers:

- creating a PivotTable in Microsoft Excel 2016 - modifying the data in a PivotTable- filtering PivotTable data with slicers - using recommended charts to create a PivotChart - adding trendlines to a chart- creating a dual axis chart - presenting data in PivotTables and PivotCharts

At sales pitch meetings, it is clearly important to get it right and make the favourable first impression. This cannot be done alone; it is impossible to pitch, present and listen at the same time. Pitch presentations will typically have two key communication tools: the first is the entrepreneur (& a second team member) as communicators; the second is a PowerPoint presentation & presentation folder. Here are 10 mistakes not to make with your sales presentation:

1. Do not deliver an “All About Us” presentation

An "All About Us" presentation goes like this: who we are, our history, our clients, our team, our credentials, why we are different, our fees, etc. There is nothing in this type of presentation for the customer, their problems, their issues and their concerns, and the solutions you can really offer them.

Make sure your pitch presentation presents the customer, their problems, and the solutions you are offering.

2. Do not use templates

Particularly where you then have to cram the slide with information in the small remaining space. At least 45 per cent of the slide should be white space.

Graphics should be used, to the point of replacing text.

Studies show that, in a presentation, a combination of the spoken word and graphics is the best and most engaging formula for audience involvement and understanding.

3. Don’t put your logo on every page

Your logo is not going to help make a sale or make a point, and having it on every single slide adds unnecessary noise and makes the presentation cluttered. We don’t begin every new sentence in a conversation by restating our name, so why would you bombard people with your logo on every slide?

4. Don't forget to relax a little at the start

Relax and create a personal connection. The audience will be trying to figure out if you are the kind of person they can work with and trust. People buy people first. Use an anecdote or story.

5. Don't forget the opening and closing of your presentation is the most critical

Your audience is at their most attentive during the opening and closing stages of your presentation, so make sure you get your messages across at these critical stages.

Use pauses and silences to punctuate your presentation and draw in your audience. After delivering a key point, accentuate it by stopping, standing still and moving only your eyes around the table.

Energy levels are also important – vary your levels to keep the audience alert and engaged.

6. Not listening

You must Listen, Listen, Listen. Most people think they do, but in reality they are thinking ahead to the next point they are going to make in their presentation and miss key signals and queries from the customer.

Very often, it is your performance in terms of listening and responding on your feet at the presentation that dictate a successful outcome.

7. Do not assume the audience has read any of the documentation that you sent in advance

Just assume they haven't.

8. Do not give a hand-out before your presentation.

It can distract attention away from your presentation, as people flick through pages.

9. Don't forget to prepare answers

Prepare answers to questions in advance and know how to handle questions that you will not answer at the presentation. Some things should not be discussed or debated at an initial or large group meeting, such as fees, when the project is not known at that point.

10. Don't forget to set a follow up

Set a follow-up and seek a clear statement of what will happen next – do not expect them to ask for it,

Over to you now. Do you have any tips for sales presentations based on your experience? Share them with us in the comments below.

Training is an excellent and a proven effective tool for motivating your employees. Not only does training create numerous benefits for the company and the employer, but it also benefits the employees. Here's how to motivate staff through employee training:

By developing your employees, you are making them more equipped and willing to perform the duties you set for them.

‘’Knowing that training is important is the first step, but to make this effective, you have to do it right. Establishing a fine training program focused on your employees is the only way to effectively enhance their skills and make them more motivated to do their jobs’’ – says Drake Torres, an HR manager at Aussiewritings.com.

If you aim to maximize the motivation and work of your employees, you need an effective training program that also motivates them. Here are some suggestions:

1. Put the Employee First

Employee training will benefit your company if done right, but the essential idea behind it is to benefit the employees. Make sure you put this as a focus – investing in your employee’s development.

This also means investing in your company’s future, but the employee comes first. Therefore, your training program must put their preferences and needs into account if you want it to succeed.

2. Put an Emphasis on their Benefits

There's nothing worse than employees thinking that training is a waste of their time. Just explaining that the training is beneficial to the company’s work won’t suffice. People need a purpose they can benefit from. Think WIIFM, what's in it for me?

Maybe you can offer some awards or rewards, such as a bonus when the company reaches a large goal on foot of new processes that they have been in trained in. Or if they master the training then next performance review will take this into account for future reward.

3. Turn It into a Game

Training isn’t a game, but a bit of competition in the workplace cannot hurt. People like to compete, and games drive heightened attention, sustained focus, and more action.

This doesn’t have to cost your company a lot. A small leaderboard with completed objectives and small rewards will make all the difference between training that’s ‘a waste of my time’ and ‘one that I must win’.

By combining slides and videos with games, quizzes, badges, and leaderboards, many companies are seeing a significant lift in comprehension during training.

4. Add Interactive Features

Spending hours listening to lectures while sitting down at a desk is not going to make training sound or be interesting.

If you want to motivate them to go through training, you need to add a spark to it. Adding interactive features into the training program like videos, games, simulations, podcasts, and scenarios, all help to make the training motivating.

5. Make It Convenient

When planning training for employees, look at work hours and practices and try to make training opportunities as simple and convenient as possible. Scheduling the training activities outside of work hours is the most de-motivating thing you can do. People won’t like it and will resist it, so try to incorporate your program into their work schedule.

6. Team Up

Think how you can team employees up during training to increase engagement and foster teamwork. Break out groups are good for discussion during training sessions. And having teams present their thoughts to the rest of the group can make for some interesting insights.

7. Show Employees You Value Their Training Efforts

Training is all about developing employees but it can be a good way to boost and demonstrate the value of employees as well as focus this toward the company’s success.

Make sure employees know that undertaking the training is adding value to their job as well as making them more valuable to the company. Your employee must know that you value their current knowledge, as well as the effort to improve on professional level.

8. Use Training to Make Their Work Easier, Not Harder

Training should boost the knowledge of the employee, but not make their work harder. Focus the training on helping them master skills they can use in their current role to help them save time, become more efficient and better at doing things.

Training might focus on new technology you are creating, new products the organisation is creating, or new organisational processes that are being introduced to help make things easier for them and their team.

9. Enhance Individual Targeted Skills

The most successful training programs target the training towards an individual's skills and works towards enhancing them. Planning and identifying those individual skills that can be targeted is only going to make the training even more effective.

10. Show your employees that you care about their development.

If they feel like they can work on their goals with you by their side, they will start seeing training as a chance to enhance their career development long-term.

Hopefully some of these tips for how to motivate staff through employee training have been helpful as you plan your future employee training programs.

Over to you now. Have you used employee training to motivate staff? What's been your experience? Tell us in the comments below.

Conflict in the workplace can be difficult to overcome sometimes. If you have been experiencing workplace conflict then we have a free online training course called The Many Approaches to Facing Workplace Conflict available for Business Achievers members that might help.

About the Training Course

When facing conflict at work, you need to adapt to the situation. In this course, you'll learn about conflict styles, when to use them, and when to adapt your style. You'll also learn how to handle conflict with difficult individuals.

Who the Course is For

The course is ideal for any individual who wants to develop or refresh their skills at recognizing and responding to workplace conflict.

What the Course Covers

It takes less than an hour to go through and the course covers:

- recognising the role of workplace conflict - recognising conflict styles used most often in the workplace - adapting your style as needed in response to other conflict styles you encounter - choosing the most appropriate conflict style for a particular situation

Irish consumers are among the most digitally savvy in Europe. According to a Deloitte report, Global Mobile Consumer Survey: Ireland 2016, an overwhelming majority own or have access to a smartphone (86%), a laptop computer (80%), and a tablet (60%).

While according to PwC Ireland’s Irish Total Retail 2017 Survey, 71% of Irish respondents shop at Amazon. It predicts that Ireland’s e-commerce industry will double in value to €14.1bn in the next four years, and while a quarter of respondents said they shop online weekly, nearly half said they would be willing to make purchases on their mobile device.

“Businesses in Ireland directly targeting consumers must market to them online,” says Cormac Farrelly of Dublin-based digital marketing agency WSI. “Sales people need to adapt to this new reality or be replaced.”

How are Ireland’s businesses performing?

In 2018, Irish businesses are expected to perform relatively well in the digital space. In the European Commission’s European Digital Progress Report 2017, Ireland ranked top of all EU countries for selling goods and services online. Some 30% of SMEs are selling online, which is nearly double the average of their European counterparts. E-commerce accounted for 21.8% of total revenue in Ireland from small and medium-sized businesses.

This strong online performance reflects a significant shift in mindset, which will drive a more strategic approach to digital marketing in 2018.

“Five years ago we were educating businesses on the benefits of incorporating a digital marketing element into their overall marketing mix, and companies were reluctant to turn away from tried and trusted marketing tactics that leveraged offline channels like TV, radio and print,” says Farrelly.

“Today companies don’t need to be persuaded that they should be online. However, sometimes businesses have a very short-term vision and look to specific tactics, like Google Search, for a quick fix. Companies that take the time to put together a longer-term strategy will be more successful.”

Steven Dunlop, owner of Killinick-based Steve’s Online Marketing, agrees. “Many companies use all the different platforms, but they use them in isolation of each other instead of effectively linking them all together to form a more powerful overall approach.”

Getting it right with digital marketing

A key development in 2018 will be a repositioning of digital marketing as a core function within many businesses. Digital marketing has a lot of different facets: social media channels, a professional-looking website, messaging, email marketing, analytics, strategic online advertising, reviews and customer relationship management are all part of the picture. Yet some businesses still fail to invest in the proper skills and training.

“Your Facebook page might be run by an employee who has other things they have to be doing or is not a digital native. Giving your staff the right knowledge is a challenge all the way from sole traders right up to the IBMs of this world,” says Aaron McKenna, managing director of the Digital Marketing Institute.

“Don’t try and make your customers use a new technology for your services – go with what they’re used to or what they are expecting”

David Douglas, Managing Director, ebow

David Douglas, managing director of digital agency ebow, agrees that people need to understand and be aware of the level of investment and time needed. “It’s not simple and it’s not quick. If businesses can improve on their expectations as well as accept the quirks of the playing field then they will see gains.”

Crucially, your digital marketing strategy needs to be tailored to your target audience. “Use what your customers use,” advises Douglas. “Don’t try to make your customers use a new technology for your services – go with what they’re used to or what they are expecting.”

Spending wisely on digital marketing

However much firms decide to allocate to an online marketing budget, many struggle to get a clear perspective of the results. When evaluating a campaign, it’s important to take a holistic view: Farrelly notes that many businesses fail to spot the effectiveness of elements such as online videos because they forget that, much like billboard advertising, videos can serve to keep you on a potential customer’s radar, eventually resulting in a sale.

“Typically, companies use a ‘last click’ attribution model,” says Farrelly. “This attributes the conversion, be it a product purchase or a lead, to the last click in the chain. Usually this means that search campaigns get credited with the sale as this is often the last channel that the potential customer comes in on prior to converting. We often hear companies say, ‘We advertised using video but it didn’t generate any leads.’ However, if they hadn’t been running a video campaign the person [may not] have searched for their brand.”

Gauging the effectiveness of a campaign will become easier as businesses start to demand more transparency from marketing agencies, says McKenna. “There is a big trend around the verifiability of your marketing, with brands like P&G [Procter & Gamble] pushing for more accountability from their agencies and media platforms.”

This means there’s a growing demand for accurate statistics, and for agencies to be open about the commissions they receive for placing ads. “If they’re buying media on your behalf, ask if they’re getting commission on that – ignore any faux outrage at the question; go and do it and do pay attention,” says McKenna.

Technical advances are also driving future digital marketing trends. And below are five to watch out for in 2018.

1. Augmented reality (AR)

“Brands have been experimenting with AR for some time now and we are starting to see creative uses of AR that deliver real value to the consumer and enhance sales,” says Gaëlle Robert, marketing communications executive for the Marketing Institute of Ireland. A recent example is the Starbucks Cup Magic app that superimposes digital animation over a cup of coffee when you view it through your phone’s camera.

2. Mobile-friendly websites

“Google is pushing ahead with what it calls Mobile First, which means that your website needs to be mobile friendly,” says Dunlop. The shift to Mobile First means that Google algorithms will primarily rank a website's pages using the mobile version of the site, rather than the desktop version. You can check your site’s mobile friendliness here.

3. Artificial intelligence/chatbots

“Chatbots are a great way for marketers to exploit the opportunity presented by the rise of messaging apps,” says Robert. “As they come of age, we expect that they will become more mainstream and allow brands to offer a more seamless, instant and personalised user experience.”

4. Dark social

With consumers sharing content mostly through private communication channels (known as dark social), marketers are starting to find ways to exploit these channels. One way is to place sharing buttons for dark social channels, such as WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram on your website.

5. Voice recognition

“With voice accounting for 20% of search last year, marketers will have to start optimising search for voice,” says Robert. “This involves a shift from keyword optimisation towards finding out the main questions that customers ask, and providing clear answers.”

Dunlop expects a return to long-tail keywords as speech recognition and speech searches increase. “This will make quality, relevant content, and lots of it, more important on your website. When people type into a search engine they use a few words or a short sentence.

On a mobile device, the search is even shorter, maybe just two or three words, but with speech recognition users’ searches will get much longer as it’s very quick and easy to speak an entire sentence or phrase. Searches will become longer and more specific, hence search engine optimisation will need to take these longer search phrases into account.”

Over to you now. Has your business looked at or implemented any of these new digital marketing technologies? How are they working for you? Tell us your experience in the comments below.

]]>contentlive@business-achievers.com (ContentLive)GeneralTue, 07 Aug 2018 09:30:23 +0100Cryptocurrency: More Than Just a Crazehttps://www.business-achievers.com/general/cryptocurrency-more-than-just-a-craze
https://www.business-achievers.com/general/cryptocurrency-more-than-just-a-craze

Though the bitcoin bubble may appear to be bursting, regulations and innovation could help small businesses in Ireland benefit from what cryptocurrency has to offer. Here's why cryptocurrency is more than just a craze:

Between 2012 and 2016, blockchain businesses in Ireland received around €121m in venture capital funding

Despite growing interest in the sector, a lack of regulation has led to huge fluctuations in the value of bitcoin and similar currencies

Stable exchange rates and faster processing could lead more small businesses to introduce cryptocurrency transactions

Towards the end of March, the minister for finance, public expenditure and reform, Paschal Donohoe, published a discussion paper proposing the creation of Ireland’s first working group to monitor developments in the cryptocurrency space. The paper, ‘Virtual Currencies and Blockchain Technology’, was launched with the aim of eventually providing a regulatory framework both for virtual currencies and for blockchain, the technology that underpins them.

Even though cryptocurrencies have captured the attention mainly of investors since bitcoin launched in 2009, they can also be used to purchase tangible assets. In Ireland, a number of small e-commerce businesses have offered cryptocurrency as a payment option in the past, but these currencies have yet to enter the mainstream because, as with any relatively new technology, regulators have been slow to catch up.

The lack of regulation thus far has meant that the prices of cryptocurrencies have fluctuated wildly. Bitcoin rocketed to an astronomical high in December, before crashing, and there’s no shortage of commentators ready to give bitcoin its last rites, expecting its bubble to burst.

The volatility surrounding cryptocurrencies recently led the payment processor Stripe to announce that it would end its support of bitcoin on 23 April. The company – founded by two brothers from Limerick – said that, due to the price fluctuations, bitcoin had become more of an asset than a means of exchange, and so was becoming less useful for payments. It added that it would continue to monitor the cryptocurrency ecosystem and hoped to offer bitcoin as a payment option again once the price had stabilised.

Why Ireland is ripe for innovation

While regulations could help bring stability to the prices of cryptocurrencies, the Department of Finance’s plan to set up a working group could enable the coordinated development of policy measures. This in turn might encourage and promote innovation in the cryptocurrency sector.

Ireland boasts a thriving blockchain community, which makes it well placed to realise the true potential of cryptocurrency and use it to stimulate growth and create economic opportunities, according to Noel Mulkeen, a blockchain advocate and director of consultancy firm Zomond.

Virtual Currencies and Blockchain Technology, the discussion paper published in March, reveals that an estimated 6.3% of venture capital invested in Ireland from 2012 to 2016 went to blockchain businesses. They received $150m (€121m) in total funding, second only to the UK, which received around $500m (€404m) in the same four-year period.

“More customers are wanting to know what bitcoin is exactly and how it works. It’s become a great topic of conversation”

Daniel Kavecky, Director, People’s Restaurant

While not all of the entrepreneurs and start-ups in the blockchain community deal with cryptocurrencies, they are in a position to help businesses reap the benefits of the technology, says Mulkeen, who spoke at an Ulster Bank event on cryptocurrency held in Sligo last November.

“Events such as hackathons can play their part in driving innovation,” he says. “They can bring a mix of talent and skills together, leading to new ideas and, sometimes, unexpected results.”

Why innovation will drive adoption

A likely impact that innovation will have is ironing out the challenges that cryptocurrencies currently present, which might be holding some businesses back from adopting the technology and accepting virtual payments.

Nash Basel opened Crypto Cafe in Dublin in February. The cafe accepts ethereum and litecoin from digital wallets on smartphones, and averages between four and six cryptocurrency transactions daily. Despite the early success, the time it takes for a payment to be processed leaves much to be desired.

“Payment settlement times give me, the merchant, the most trouble,” Basel says. “I’ll hope every payment goes through without a glitch, but there are risks, such as the sender can cancel any time after I’ve accepted the payment and before the final confirmation. Even the slightest disruption in internet connection can lead to a transaction failing.” He adds that payments generally can’t be disputed once they’re confirmed, so there is no risk of chargebacks, unlike with credit and debit cards.

Once issues such as payment settlement times have been addressed, cryptocurrencies are likely to become an attractive proposition to more small business owners, who are always looking to create a frictionless customer experience, says Basel. The benefit of using virtual currencies is that every transaction is completed and stored using a distributed ledger on a peer-to-peer network that is anonymous, transparent and without a central authority. These transactions are verified in the blockchain.

Furthermore, if regulations can bring stability to prices, this could lead to reasonably low transaction fees for merchants, Basel adds.

How small businesses can help increase public awareness

Nevertheless, cryptocurrencies are only likely to enter the mainstream if the public are willing to embrace and pay with them.

A clear regulatory framework could go some way to reassuring sceptical consumers about what protections are in place when dealing with virtual currencies. Small businesses can also play a role in educating people, says Daniel Kavecky, the director of People’s Restaurant in Cavan, which has been accepting bitcoin payments since the end of last year.

“Very few customers have actually paid with bitcoin so far,” says Kavecky. “However, what we’re finding is that more are wanting to know what it is exactly and how it works. It’s become a great topic of conversation for our diners and staff.”

Kavecky believes that the visibility of ‘Bitcoin accepted here’ and similar signs on high streets and in eating and drinking establishments will help to stimulate debate, create awareness and have a positive influence on opinion. Whether cryptocurrency will become as ubiquitous as credit and debit cards is open to debate.

“Cryptocurrencies aren’t going to replace plastic cards altogether,” says Basel. “However, they will become a real competitor that cannot be ignored [by small businesses], and they will almost certainly be widely adopted once the technology has been perfected.”

Over to you now. Has your business worked with cryptocurrency? Tell us your experience in the comments below.

Good news, we have sourced a number of practical training courses, designed for busy business owners and these are now available to Business Achievers members for free. Find out about our free online training courses for Business Achievers members:

Mergers and acquisitions often play a key role in a company's ongoing growth-planning process. It may be more efficient to achieve the objectives by buying assets and resources needed for growth. Here are 13 key questions about your business for growth by acquisition:

A growing company considering an acquisition should always begin with an acquisition plan that identifies the specific objectives of the transaction and the criteria to be applied in analysing a potential target company.

But first you need to make sure that growth by acquisition makes sense. Here are some questions to go through for your business.

The State is the single largest buyer in Ireland, spending a whopping €9 billion of public money on procuring services and goods in 2017, across 7,500 different tender opportunities. Here are 7 Steps to Take Your Government Tenders to Another Level:

For many SMEs, it is the prospect of finding and applying for tenders that is off-putting. Complicated applications can be intimidating but the fact is many businesses here are uninformed and inexperienced when it comes to tendering.

Furthermore, for many SMEs, the cost of making a submission may seem too expensive given the uncertain returns.

In order for Irish SMEs to shed their fear of tender bidding and to rebrand themselves as serious competitors for the public procurement purse, reconsidering their approach to tenders is vital. The following list will help give confidence to curious SMEs. As Ireland possesses a forward-thinking, technologically savvy and well-educated workforce, the application of the 7 steps listed will mean SMEs improve their tendering win rate, while asking their competitors to CATCH ME!

1. C for Commit

When you decide to start a tender bid, do not go in half-hearted. Invest your time and manpower in understanding the system and work out what is expected and required. A pertinent question is: where are the hotspots for open tenders? At any one time, there can be 45,000 opportunities in the Irish and European markets. Commit your time and energy to trawling platforms where tenders are announced and logged, scrutinise opportunities and become familiar with the expectations of a successful tender bid.

2. A for Articulate

Your bid should read like a solid argument from start to finish. This means smart SMEs will interrogate their business brand, quiz themselves about what they stand for as an enterprise and consider the aims they have for the future. This is no easy task - but once you know what you want to say, consider how you will articulate it in your bid. Communicate using the language of your audience. With the correct language, SMEs can compel and convince the reader. Articulate that your business can and will best deliver the required service with quality and professionalism. A coherent and confident case will make all the difference.

3. T for Text and image balance

Now armed with a strong story, steeped in brand awareness and confidence, SMEs would do well to consider the added boon of images in their tenders. Interspersing text-heavy bids with relevant and reinforcing images, such as infographics or illuminating charts, will add individuality and uniqueness to your tender application, driving your memorable points home for the reader.

4. C for Checks

Checking for errors is a dull task, but it is fundamental to any bid that it is fault-free. Understand the tone required, engage with relevant policy, cite your figures - and check again and again and again. The smallest mistake can cost dearly and be the difference between a successful and unsuccessful bid. While it might seem fundamental, even something as basic as checking for spelling and grammar means your bid won’t be let down by mistakes that can be easily avoided.

5. H for Help

One of the most important attributes for any business is a willingness to learn, communicate, network and collaborate with others. The same applies to tendering. Reaching out to experts is key to winning tenders. Within the tendering sector, active assists are becoming an important asset to SMEs, as they fulfil the functions of researching, collating, writing and guiding applications. Tendering is a learning process and smart SMEs use the right people and ask for help, if necessary, to present the best bid they can.

6. M for Moment

Studies show that one of the chief reasons for failed tender applications is a simple one: missing deadlines. Indeed, some applications may have more than one deadline as bids progress through phases. Keeping a close eye on dates and times of closures is imperative. A bid that is well researched, uses all the right language and is error-free is no good if it misses a deadline.

7. E for Entertain

A sparkling, innovative and memorable tender bid will speak volumes over your competitors. Be confident – don’t be afraid to showcase the assets of your organisation. Tell your reader how you will bring added value and extra commitment and convey your passion!

With these tips in mind, it is worthwhile to note that, according to TenderScout CEO Tony Corrigan, only one in ten SMEs compete for government contracts. This figure shows the majority of Irish businesses are completely in the dark about the tendering opportunities open to them. For economic survival and for the good of the country – tenders are perhaps the best illustration of the State's commitment to economic recovery – SMEs must get on board and, at the very least, dare to bid.

The figures show that the opportunities and monies are out there, but the onus is on SMEs to face up to the challenge. Using the seven tips in this article, success is within reach!

TenderScout partners with businesses in Ireland and abroad to help them win more tenders. If you'd like to find out more, we'd love to talk to you.

Over to you now. What's your experience with government tenders? Any tips to share? Tell us in the comments below.

Ulster Bank was delighted to continue its association with the Small Firms Association at its 2018 Annual Conference, bringing focus to a sector of critical importance to the economy as a whole. The economic growth and employment supported by the sector is reflected in the Bank's aim to lend more than €1bn to SMEs in 2018. Here's what Eddie Cullen, Managing Director of Commercial Banking at Ulster Bank had to say post event:

"In Ulster Bank we try to spend as much time as we can engaging with our customers and try to understand their challenges. We have found staffing and Brexit to be principal amongst these and SFA surveys have found lower levels of business confidence in the last six months than previous periods.

The uncertainties of Brexit remain, and likely will do so for some time. We encourage our customers to examine how they can diversify and to plan for a “Hard Brexit”, whatever the outcome. The overarching ambition to remain competitive is widespread amongst our customers and we are constantly asking ourselves how we, as a Bank, can help with this ambition.

Central Bank of Ireland reports show that while outright new lending to SMEs increased in 2017, the overall level of debt in the economy continued to reduce. The vast majority of SMEs who had not applied for finance responded that not needing it was the main reason.

A company’s financial structure and strength is crucial, and in this time of lower credit demand, SMEs should ensure that they analyse what is best for the long-term health of their business, and that they do not starve the company of the debt or equity investment needed.

More companies seem to be using existing cash resources for investment, and one danger of this is that they are then starved of the cash necessary to turn that investment into the growth needed and to match their ambitions.

To help our customers in achieving this finance structure, we try to provide clarity on the information we need and the type of investment that we can support, just like our customers would in their own business.

In addition, we have spent considerable time and resources investing in our people to ensure that they have the right expertise and sector knowledge to help our customers through a process that can admittedly be sometimes daunting."

Tips for Businesses When Approaching Your Bank

When approaching a Bank or a lender, be prepared, know your investment case and make sure you receive all the relevant information about the various types of finance available.

Companies and entrepreneurs should shop around when assessing their finance options. Statistics indicate that less than 10% of small companies apply to a different Bank when applying for finance.

And Three Things to Help Small Firms Remain Competitive?

"Communication, good structures and assessing all of your options are three things that will help any small firm remain competitive in today’s challenging economy."

As a small business owner, when you hear the word, “organisation,” as it relates to entrepreneurship or management, you might think about scheduling and organising your time. While that’s vital to any business, have you given thought to the physical organisation and layout of your operations center? Here are 3 Simple Ways to Organise Your Business:

Whether it's the office, a warehouse, a laboratory, or even a work truck, having better physical organisation will keep things running smoothly and, ultimately, raise your bottom line. Read on to find out why organisation matters and what you can do to improve it.

Benefits of Better Physical Organisation

If you’ve ever been an employee in a poorly organised environment, you already know that a lack of organisation can cause workers to feel frustrated, overwhelmed, and irritable. If you work for yourself, you know the extra pressure that poor organisation invites: Imagine needing to look up details of a project that you just know you’ve written down somewhere—only “somewhere” does not seem to be at your fingertips and your customer is currently on hold.

What can better physical organisation do for your business?

Organisation increases company morale. Picture having a system where you and your employees know where everything is and can access it quickly. There’s no bickering or bumping into one another looking for supplies and no more embarrassing moments. Think about how much more pleasant the environment will be and how much less annoyed your employees will be.

Organisation boosts efficiency. The correlation between organization and efficiency is obvious: If you can’t find what you’re looking for or you’re moving piles of paperwork from one location to another, you’re not going to be able to get your work done as efficiently. Getting everything in order allows you to work more quickly and effectively.

Organisation minimizes errors. Whether it’s giving a customer the wrong information, losing a box of important supplies, or suffering a physical injury from climbing over stacked up items, a lack of organization can cause havoc in your business. Taking control of the situation can reduce the number of mistakes that happen and can save you from expensive errors.

3 Simple Ways to Get Your Business More Organised

Not sure where to start in cleaning up the clutter in your workspace? Here are some tips:

Let your employees know the new expectations. If you’ve been lax in allowing mayhem to rule, they will need some time to get their acts together. Be clear about what you expect: tidy desks, no more stacked boxes in the warehouse, bins with lids holding supplies in the work trucks, and so on. Just as importantly, inspect what you expect and let them know you’ll be checking on a weekly basis (and then do it!).

Find a home for every item. You’ve heard the adage, “a place for everything and everything in its place,” and this is the real-life application. Every item should have a home, and everyone who works in that space should know where the home is. This is particularly important in a warehouse space, where organising warehouse inventory strategically can cause productivity to skyrocket.

Get bigger garbage cans. This sounds silly, but it really works, explains business-management guru Neil Patel. Much of what comes into the business is trash, and when people leave trash around, it accumulates and mixes with important items. A larger trash can and more trash cans placed strategically around the workspace will encourage people to throw things away and make more space for their supplies.

Better business organisation is a never-ending cycle; it’s not as though you can organise everything once and then forget about it. But getting yourself and your employees into the habit of keeping the place physically neat and tidy will definitely deliver non-tangible benefits.

Over to you now. What's your experience of keeping the office or business organised? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

The revised SME Credit Guarantee Scheme was launched today, replacing the 2012 Scheme which expired in June. The new scheme increases the guarantee to participating financial providers from 75% to 80% on qualified loans to SMEs.

Its aim is to assist viable SMEs, which under normal lending criteria are unable to borrow from their bank, in accessing credit. The Scheme’s key features include facilities of €10,000 up to €1,000,000; terms of up to 7 years; term loans, demand loans and performance bonds.

Pictured Left to Right: Olaf Fitzsimmons, Head of SME Banking East, Ulster Bank; Catherine Moroney, Head of Business Banking, AIB; Minister of State for Trade, Employment, Business, EU Digital Single Market and Data Protection, Pat Breen TD; Michael Lauhoff, Director of Business Banking, BOI; Suzanne Sweeney, Head of Lending, Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland (SBCI)

Olaf Fitzsimmons, Head of SME Banking East at Ulster Bank remarked "Ulster Bank is delighted to offer SME customer funding through the Credit Guarantee Scheme, specifically for those that may be finding it difficult to access finance. Every business has unique requirements and it is important that we offer both sectoral expertise and specialist financing such as this to ensure we are providing meaningful help to the very businesses that are driving our economy.

Pat Breen, Minister of State for Trade, Employment, Business, EU Digital Single Market and Data Protection, who launched the event commented "It is critical to Ireland’s continued economic growth that our almost 250,000 SMEs are encouraged and facilitated to reach their full potential. Access to adequate credit facilities remains a major barrier in this regard. The Government is committed to helping SMEs to overcome obstacles to growth and productivity and so I am delighted to formally launch the new Credit Guarantee Scheme. The previous scheme was effective in helping those SMEs that may have had inadequate collateral; that operated in perceived higher-risk or novel business markets, sectors or technologies; and that required refinancing due to the exit of a lender from the market. The relaunched scheme is designed to be even more effective. It increases the guarantee to financial providers from 75% – 80%, has a lower premium charge for the first year, and has the potential for extension beyond the banks to other financial providers."

Ken Boyne, Managing Director of Ionic Consulting tells Ulster Bank his story about becoming an “accidental entrepreneur” when he moved to buy the Irish subsidiary of their parent company, Wind Prospect Group. The decision to purchase the business was made to sustain Ionic Consulting's continued successful growth as a standalone business and protect the jobs of their 40 employees. As part of this journey, Ken details why he selected Ulster Bank to be the funding partner to support his company’s future.

Ken explains that the level of professionalism and preparedness displayed by dedicated relationship managers such as Stephen Galbraith and the clear understanding of his growth plans and the renewable energy sector gave him the confidence that he was making the right decision.

The success of this relationship has been most recently displayed with both Ionic Consulting and Ulster Bank among those involved in the development of the Coillte owned Sliabh Bawn Windfarm. Mary Lynch, Project Director at Coillte Land Solutions and Karen Doyle of Ulster Bank, speak about how this positive relationship was significant to the delivery of the project and ensured that it had a positive impact on the community.”

There are many advantages associated with establishing a product-oriented business, not least the fact that firms can focus heavily on quality and offering tangible value to their customers.

Successfully launching a new product or range as an SME can be extremely challenging, however, particularly as smaller businesses lack the financial and human resources of their more established rivals.

In this article, we'll consider advice that can help you to successfully launch your product, regardless of the market or industry that you operate in.

Make Data your Key Watchword

In the modern age, data can be an extremely effective tool that remains relatively accessible to small and medium-sized business-owners.

With big data also enabling firms to collate large swathes of data and analyse this in intricate detail, it's never been easier to determine the your core target audiences while identifying viable gaps in the marketplace.

This is also increasingly cost-effective, as the technology behind analytical CRM systems becomes more available within the marketplace.

By successfully harnessing and leveraging key data sets, you can optimise its design while ensuring that it is marketed at the right audience.

Define your Goals to Optimise the Success of your Product Launch

With a viable product and market identified, the next step is to define your individual goals and ensure that they help you build towards a successful launch.

These goals should be detail-oriented and measurable, while it's also crucial that you set realistic timelines to help drive attainment.

The most common goals include creating a buzz around your product and converting launch attendees into customers, while SMEs may also want to use the event to cultivate wider brand awareness.

With clearly-defined goals and a strategic outlook, you can create an effective product launch that is part of a wider marketing and brand building campaign.

Don't Forget the Logistical Side of the Event

Your product launch will culminate in a public event, which may target the media, trade partners or potential customers depending on your business model and the nature of your proposition.

While there's always likely to be a strong focus on your product and marketing efforts, however, it's imperative that you do not lose sight of the logistical requirements when planning your event. Partnering with event industry experts can help with this, particularly if they have corporate experience and access to a diverse range of potential locations.

Remember, it doesn't matter if you delegate the organisation of your event, so long as you give this careful consideration and communication your vision clearly to service providers.

Failure to do this could undermine your best laid plans, leaving even the most innovative products incapable of penetration.

In the digital age, there's a tendency for SMEs to become preoccupied with online marketing techniques.

After all, digital channels are often considered as being central to cost-effective marketing campaigns, while they also provide businesses with instant access to a vast audience.

While cost is an important consideration for SMEs, however, the return on investment (ROI) is arguably more crucial. This is why so many small and medium-sized businesses create integrated marketing campaigns that include a number of offline channels, as many of these offer an exceptional and often underrated ROI.

Take leaflet marketing, for example, which can deliver an ROI that is 40-times your initial investment and is proven to have a positive impact in the minds of consumers.

In the post below, we'll look at the key considerations for leaflet marketing and offer some advice on how to leverage this channel effectively.

Is your Audience Receptive to Leaflet Marketing?

Let's start with the basics; as even the most widely used marketing channels may prove ineffective if they're incompatible with your audience.

Leaflet marketing is no exception to this rule, as while this remains an extremely effective method of targeting customers there are studies which suggest that some industries benefit from this practice more than other.

Studies have shown that businesses in the retail sector benefit the most from leaflet marketing, with nine out of 10 customers in this space happy to receive correspondence.

This marketing channel is also particularly effective for restaurants and local service providers, who often look to target customers with a clearly defined, geographical region.

Does Leaflet Marketing Build Brand Awareness?

One of the primary goals of new and burgeoning businesses is to build brand awareness, as this lays the foundation for further recognition and sustained consumer loyalty in the future.

In this respect, leaflet marketing represents an extremely effective channel for SMEs. Aside from its impressive ROI, it's estimated that 89% of consumers remember receiving a door drop mailing, with this figure higher than any other marketing channel available to small businesses in the digital age.

Furthermore, approximately 45% of recipients hold on to leaflets for a concerted period of time, or share these directly with friends and family members. This, in turn, provides an extremely cost-effective method through which brands can build awareness, while incrementally enhancing their reach and exposure.

Are you Using Leaflet Marketing as Part of an Integrated Strategy?

In the quest to build awareness, you'll need to continually communicate with customers while maintaining as consistent a tone as possible.

This is why leaflet marketing must be utilised as part of an integrated campaign, and one that is structured to provide a relevant customer journey while leveraging assisted conversions wherever possible.

Regular leaflet drops can help to build awareness and cultivate a sense of trust among your customers, for example, before being used to advertise specific promotions.

This can then direct traffic both in-store and online, with content being tailored to effectively engage target audiences and optimise conversion rates.

It's crucial that you do not become overly reliant on any form of marketing, even one as effective as leaflet drops. So long as you incorporate it as part of a detailed and integrated strategy, you can realise its full potential to the benefit of your SME.

We are living in the greatest time in human history where technology has made everything possible. Thanks to the internet, we are presented with endless opportunities including the freedom to create a life on our own terms. Remote work is one of them and I’ve jumped on the bandwagon late last year after my trip to Ubud back in October 2017.

What is remote work?

For those of you who are foreign to the term remote work - it is essentially a job that can be completed away from the office in a remote location.

With big tech companies such as Atlassian and Buffer riding on the remote team’s wave, remote work is definitely here to stay and will be the future of work! The exciting thing about this is - remote work is no longer limited to freelancers. Freelancers and employees under a remote work arrangement are also known as being “location independent”.

However, remote work isn’t for everyone and it requires a completely different set of skills altogether. On top of having to be technically qualified for the role, remote workers require great discipline and possess the ability to be effective and productive while working independently.

How do you know if remote work is suitable for you or as a business owner, how do you know if you are building the right team?

3 Key traits to know if remote work is for you or your team:

You are disciplined and self-motivated.

It is important that you are a self-motivated individual. With the absence of managers, bosses or coworkers managing you and telling you which tasks to prioritise and complete, plus adding the island life to the equation, it would be easy to become lazy and unmotivated. That is why you must be motivated to complete a task or achieve a milestone not because you were told to do it but because you want to do it.

You are a problem-solver.

Being a remote worker means you might be working on a completely different time zone and do not have direct access to your superior or coworkers. What does this mean for a remote worker? You have to be comfortable in taking the initiative to seek the answer or come up with a solution should a future problem that requires urgent attention arise.

You are effective and have the ability to prioritise.

A great remote worker knows what needs to get done and delivers. You are very well aware that efficiency and effectiveness are not the same things and in order to achieve the optimum outcome and be successful, you have to be first, effective; then, efficient. You are able to identify and decide what tasks are urgent and important and focus your time on the urgent work before anything else.

Now that you have determined that remote work is for you, how do you make the transition to location independent?

A unique opportunity to learn everything about remote work is attending the upcoming Running Remote Conference that is happening in Bali on 26th and 27th June 2018. Apart from all the amazing keynote speakers and actionable strategies on how to build, manage and scale a remote team, you get to meet freelancers and digital nomads who you might hire as a part of your remote team. In addition to that, you will be networking with some of the world’s best from tech company founders, online collaboration thought leaders and outsourcing business owners.

As the saying goes, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.

Whether you are someone who’s about to embark on the location independent journey or a founder/business owner who’s looking to build a remote team, the Running Remote Conference 2018 is an event not to be missed!

Online sales are rising in Ireland and putting pressure on the traditional bricks-and-mortar retailers. We look at how businesses can improve their in-store customer service, and the impact it might have on the high street.

Retail Ireland, the body that represents over 3,000 retail outlets in Ireland, revealed in its February 2018 monthly monitor, ‘Disruptors reshaping consumer behaviour’, that retail sales values dropped by 0.7% in December.

Sales in department stores fell 4.7%, with fashion, footwear and textile sales decreasing by 0.8%. Year-on-year sales were more positive, with department stores up 5.1% since December 2016, and fashion, footwear and textiles up 2%.

While overall retail sales were 4.5% higher than the previous year, this rise was markedly lower than the 12% jump seen in Irish B2C e-commerce sales over 2017. So how can high-street retailers improve the store experience to boost sales?

Virtual shoppers

“Annual sales have increased, but they are lagging behind overall consumer spend and economic growth,” says Thomas Burke, director of Retail Ireland. “There has been an increasing migration of consumers to online. They’re more comfortable than ever shopping in the virtual world, and, with 70% of all digital purchases transacted on websites based outside of Ireland, retailers are acutely aware of the challenge. Failure to act in the short term will lead to closures and the gradual disappearance of certain retail formats from our high street.”

Making customer service a key differentiator between bricks-and-mortar stores and online is crucial.

“Shoppers remembering bad service is the single most damaging thing to a retailer’s brand,” says Burke. “Creating a better in-store experience encourages more dwell time in shops and makes your store a social destination for friends and families.”

Staff training

Burke says training can help retail staff home in on basic service skills, from greeting customers to showing empathy and friendliness. “It’s about ensuring that these communication skills are built into company culture,” he says. “The customer must be at the centre of everything. As Irish people, these skills tend to come naturally, but it’s about being personable and taking time to understand a customer’s needs.”

Burke also says more retailers are setting up in-store food services or pop-up cocktail bars to encourage shoppers to come in and spend more time.

Charlie Boyle, CEO of training group Customer Service Excellence Ireland, calls this ‘retailtainment’.

“It’s no longer good enough to just have a line of products on sale,” he says. “You need to think about the overall experience, including visual merchandising, which encourages a shopper to go on a journey inside the store. That includes ambient lighting or higher-quality music being played,” says Boyle. “They don’t get that interaction, engagement or entertainment online, and as humans we still want that.”

He agrees that staff attitude is key. “Employees are actors on the retail stage. They need to be motivated and understand your retail vision or they will become disengaged, affecting customer service. It’s about treating staff better and recognising great performance with a ‘Well done’. It’s remarkable how peer-to-peer praise can make staff more engaged.”

Revenue boost

“If you invest in your staff, the pay-off is immediate,” says Michael Killeen, chairman of customer experience benchmarking and training firm The CX Company. “You see the difference the next day because your employee is happy.”

“Creating a better in-store experience encourages more dwell time in shops and makes your store a social destination for friends and families”

Thomas Burke, Director, Retail Ireland

He adds that improving the customer experience has tangible business benefits, such as increased revenues, better productivity and enhanced brand reputation. This includes a customer being 2.7 times more likely to keep doing business with you and 3.6 times more likely to buy more, according to The CX Company’s Ireland Customer Experience Report 2017. This can lead to word-of-mouth recommendations, making up over 70% of new customer leads in some sectors. Businesses may also see falls in employee churn and the cost of customer complaint resolutions.

Working with online

Retailers can benefit from viewing online not as a challenge, but as an opportunity to achieve better customer service.

“You need to integrate offline and online and take the technological bells and whistles into the store,” Burke says. “You don’t want both teams competing with each other in terms of sales in separate silos.”

This omnichannel approach could entail introducing technology, for example apps, that enable easier payments, boosting productivity and reducing queue times; creating a digital enquiry point and collating more customer data, enabling the targeting of more personalised offers, says Kenneth Keogh, director of business development at Fujitsu Ireland.

“You could have more interaction between online and the store, meaning that you can get customers to ‘click and collect’ in store, gathering data that allows you to know what customers wear, what size they are,” he says. “You’re creating a digital village where you know every customer very well.”

In time, he suggests, this could lead to in-store technology that might involve, say, robots recognising a customer’s face, which works as a form of greeting and aids understanding of a customer’s needs, or smart mirrors in changing rooms, which could help customers choose matching products and communicate with staff, who could then bring the clothes directly to the changing room.

“Customer service can be bolstered by technology,” says Keogh. “At present, a quarter of customers feel they have a poor in-store tech experience. Retailers have to give them the service they want.”

Retail strategy

“We’re continually investing in staff training and product knowledge,” says Michael Walsh, marketing director of clothing brand Dubarry. “In the case of footwear and clothing, trying on is a very important part of the decision-making process. Well-trained staff are vital to advise on product selection and correct fitting.”

The more that staff know about a product, the more confidently they can sell it to a customer. This can also help customers make a more informed choice and improve confidence in the brand.

Walsh says Dubarry wants to keep technology in the background and provide customer service via its trained employees. “[We] let our staff, our products and our professional imagery represent who we are as a brand,” he says.

Bob Johnson, owner of The Gutter Bookshop, says its customer service begins at recruitment bringing on board people who “love books, are friendly and want to talk to others about them.

“The level of knowledge and advice we can give isn’t something you’ll find online,” he says. “In addition, we’re part of the community through running book clubs and author events. Customer service has been vital in our eight-year success. It builds revenues and our reputation and makes our customers happy.”

How to build better customer service:

Staff empathy – through training programmes or at the recruitment stage, you need to develop your employees’ empathetic skills. They should be able to show the customer that they understand what it’s like to be in their shoes.

Use of in-store technology can help minimise customer time and effort. Use digital helpdesks, touch points and payment technologies to reduce queues.

Personalisation – use data to create offers and deeper emotional connections with customers.